The Caferno
by Jaina Lusa Solo
Summary: Spoof of Dante's Inferno! What happens to people who don't like cafeteria food after they die? Let the punishment fit the crime!


It was like the woods where I was passing through, It was a forest of students and their backpacks. Each had different places to go and things to do.  
  
I was turned so around, I didn't know where to go. I did so much, I didn't know what to do. The pain of my mistakes just began to show.  
  
Out of nowhere three students came in the hall. They were ready to attack me for my mistakes. But before they could, my heroine came and got rid of them all.  
  
"Away!" She said in her checked apron and cap. "I'll call Mr. Silva and have him expel you!" And away ran the students who were gone in a snap.  
  
"Better now?" said the lady who loved me like no other. I could tell she cared for my welfare deeply. After all, the woman was my mother.  
  
"There is too much error here, let us leave this place. These fools will get their own in the end. Come, my child, witness what happens to those in disgrace."  
  
She took my hand and guided me through the forest of students whose errors would haunt them later too.  
  
Past the lust and the malice as I saw while we walked down and down the connector ramp through the dark. Soon my feet became very, very sore.  
  
A set of double wooden doors, we finally reached. On one a sign was written in large print that was so threatening the letters practically screeched:  
  
YOU HAVE NO HOPE OF ESCAPING THE HORRORS THAT AWAIT. PERHAPS YOU SHOULD HAVE REPENTED FOR YOUR SINS. BUT HA HA HA! IT IS NOW TOO LATE!  
  
YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE STRAYED FROM THE NARROW PATH, YES IT'S TRUE. IT'S YOUR OWN DAMN FAULT THAT YOU ARE HERE IN A PLACE WHERE YOUR EVIL DEEDS WILL BE TURNED BACK ON YOU.  
  
"The souls in these halls might, someday include thee, unless you repent change you ways," said my mother as serious as she could ever be.  
  
The first thing I saw was ten souls squished on a cafeteria bench. Sadly, that was not the most horrific thing. For at that moment, I smelled ... the stench!  
  
A mixture of vomit, food went bad, sweat, unwashed, bodies, and old garbage filled my nose. It was the most vile smell the world had ever had.  
  
"Now that you understand the smell, of this place that's in sin. I think you've smelled quite enough," my dear mother said. With that she handed me a small clothespin.  
  
With it on my nose, the smells dampened, but only just so. I wish I could have clamped my eyes shut like my nose, because I just began to take in the woe.  
  
At each cafeteria table twenty souls were sitting down. They were chained to the tables. Each wore a frown.  
  
On every table, forty little demons sat, two perched next to each plate, feeding their student the food on it which could only be described as the antonym of great.  
  
On each plate was the most horrible food I had ever seen: cat meat burgers, brown salad, milk so rancid it was green, chunky jell-o shriveled hot dogs, fungi laden applesauce and a single black brown bean.  
  
The demons made sure the students ate their food. If not it would be force fed in ways that were extremely crude.  
  
Some students barfed, but the demons didn't care. They simply made them eat more food and their barf. I asked my mother, "Why are they here?"  
  
"In life each student was a jerk. They made fun of our food, and all our hard work.  
  
"Now they pay for that mistake. Our food was never bad at all. They were just being mean. Now they must eat the worst food the worst cooks (not us) could ever make.  
  
"See what happens when you don't appreciate the work the under-paid workers of the school do. If you repent, you can avoid their fate,"  
  
She said as she motioned for me to follow. As I took the first step I felt a nasty squelch. My foot was suck in a pile of garbage. Again I felt the misery of this hollow.  
  
The pile was composed of hard macaroni and cheese and a black apple core. In which bits of macaroni stuck under my now surely smelly sneakers with some squished beans. Yet, there was more.  
  
I felt the tickling of maggots crawling over my shoes embedded in the fungus-laden applesauce that seeped into my now soaking socks. Completely grossed-out, I started walking again. What more did I have to lose?  
  
My mother noticed my shoes and said, "No one ever cleans up this place either. These students never did it in life, and still see no reason to do it since they have been dead.  
  
"There is still more you need to witness, my dear. Let us press on now, Amanda. Do not dwell on such misery The sooner we move on, the sooner we can leave here."  
  
Squish-squish-slop went my shoes as we navigated through the trash that covered the ground like fallen leaves, where demons ran around chasing rats. "Oh good!" they said. "Tomorrow the our souls will have corned beef hash!"  
  
A pitiful screaming soon reached my ears. It chilled me to the bone so deeply, I couldn't hold back my tears.  
  
Finally after a long squishy walk, a horrible sight filled my eyes. It was a place where souls were taunted with double than what the others had. And who was there- what a surprise!  
  
It was Ms. Robidoux with seven demons crawling on her form. They were pulling her money out of her pockets with intentions that were far from warm.  
  
As she screamed, she choked from the food being put in her. It didn't look fun. Why poor Ms. Robidoux? I wondered to myself. What possibly could she have done?  
  
As if he had read my mind, a demon said to me, "This scoundrel here thought cafeteria food wasn't nutritious. But worst of all she thought the Lincoln lunch ladies charged too much money.  
  
Well, what she has to now eat eternally certainly is not. And she must get her pockets picked forever now, and continuously lose the money she's got.  
  
Ms. Robidoux's shrieks ran through the air. I didn't want to spend another second in this place. "Mom?," I said, "can we get out of here?"  
  
"I think, my dear child, you have seen enough. Of here, you are done, but where we are headed is much more rough." 


End file.
